Freud's Mistress (17 page)

By the way, this morning as I was returning from the florist, I bumped right into Eduard, who apparently had finished his rounds at the hospital. He walked with me a bit and we chatted away amiably, catching up on the gossip. Did you know his Thoroughbred will be racing this summer in Dresden? He also told me he had just come back from Florence, and raved about some wonderful ceiling frescoes at the Uffizi. When he inquired after you and I informed him of your new position, he seemed a bit taken aback.

“Why Frankfurt of all places?” he asked.

“That I cannot answer,” I responded. Because I couldn't.

But what an attractive man! With exquisite manners. He asked for your new employer's address, hoping it wasn't too presumptuous and that he hadn't overestimated your enthusiasm. I assured him that you would welcome a note from him, which, I assume, will arrive shortly.

What more shall I write? The children's schedule is hectic. Anna is teething, Martin and Ernst have tonsillitis, and Edna is sick, if you can believe her. God give me strength. Sigmund has been ensconced in his study as usual, but he did come out briefly last night to play the children's favorite travel game with them, One Hundred Journeys Through Europe. He sends you his best.

I'm enclosing Sophie's letter to you. She asks for you every day. I cling to the hope that you will reconsider your decision and join us soon.

Your loving sister,

Martha

Minna was overcome with emotion by Martha's innocent appeal for her to return home. She had managed to get through the past week by resolving not to repeat her transgressions and to get herself thoroughly away from Sigmund. But deep inside, there had been an unrelenting desire to see him again. But no more. The burning question rolled in once again, like a tidal wave. How could she have done this to her sister? The Seventh Commandment seemed to be a law that was broken indiscriminately. How often had she heard that “this one” or “that one” was having an affair. It was almost an epidemic. But Minna's unique set of circumstances trumped this national phenomenon.
Blut ist dicker als Wasser.

A
few days later, while Minna was struggling with her response to Martha, a short note from Eduard did indeed arrive.

Vienna, 26 Feb, 1896

Dear Minna,

Your sister, Martha, kindly gave me your address. How fortuitous that you are in Frankfurt. I happen to be traveling there next month for the annual Thoroughbred sales at the Frankfurter Rennklub in Niederrad, just a few kilometers south of the city. The track is modeled after the one in Paris, turrets, towers, so forth, and there's a marvelous restaurant nearby. Perhaps you could join me.

My dear Minna, perhaps I hadn't paid enough attention to your wanderlust when we were last together. I admire your adventurous spirit and look forward to seeing you again.

Yours truly,

Eduard

She tossed the postcard in her drawer, where it disappeared into a pile of papers, and reflected on Martha's ringing endorsement of the man. Her sister was right. Eduard was a brilliant prospect for someone. But considering where her thoughts were at the moment, she couldn't possibly respond.

When she finally went downstairs, she found the sisters in the reception room, reading a hand-delivered message from their close friend, Julian Barnett, a decorative arts consultant. He had been abroad for some time, but was arriving home that very afternoon. In celebration of his return, they decided to throw an impromptu dinner the next evening,
“à huit heures sonnantes.”

The cook, kitchen staff, and housemaids were given their instructions; the hearths scrubbed; furniture dusted and oiled; and Minna was sent to buy candles, flowers, crystallized fruits, pickled nuts, bottles of champagne, and savory forcemeats. At least there would be heat in the house—and alcohol.

The next night, the guest of honor arrived at the stroke of eight, walking into a house that was warm, illuminated, and filled with white roses, the very vision of abundance. Minna had been told by the sisters (more than once) that Julian had an impeccable eye, so they had instructed the staff to hide the ratty shawls and coverlets that were always left like abused pets on the sofas.

“
Cher
Julian. How we missed you!” the sisters said in unison.

“My two most delicious patrons,” he replied in a soft, reedy voice, handing his silk top hat, silver-tipped cane, and woolen cloak to the footman and then casting a languid eye at Minna, who stood in the hallway. He beamed at the two doting women and elaborately pressed their hands to his lips.

Minna appraised the tall, rail-like man. He had a pale, ghostly pallor; high cheekbones; and immaculate, slicked-back hair. His hands were soft and round, like a woman's, with a large sapphire ring on his left pinky. They crossed the threshold into the reception room and sat amid the dense bric-a-brac and musty bowls of potpourri.

“As usual, your home is lovely,” he said, looking around the room. “You both have the most impeccable taste.” Ah, yes, if you like mortuaries, Minna thought.

The last-minute party was a small affair with twelve guests, most of whom seemed to know one another and were a mix of public officials, pretty young socialites, and two rather forbidding academics. They were the kind of people one really didn't like, but who came in handy at dinner parties. Minna marveled at the sisters' ability to draw such a crowd, even if they
did
trade endless anecdotes about their ancient Continental adventures and the latest lurid scandals.

“It reminds me of the World's Fair in Chicago,” said Professor Wertheim, a distant cousin of the Kassels.

“I read that President Cleveland pushed a button and a hundred thousand lights went up in the fairgrounds,” responded Herr Bahr, a former minister of parliament who arrived with a raven-haired young woman, later described by Bella as a
“jeune femme fatale.”

“It's true. . . . I'm converting my whole house.”

“How was your holiday?”

“Wonderful. Don't you long to be in Paris?”

“I hear the city is filled with Americans.”

“Avoid them like the plague.”

“Speaking of the plague . . . have you heard about this Dreyfus fellow? Poor man, the news gets worse from Paris every day,” said Wertheim. It seemed he had “inside information” about the Dreyfus Affair, a scandalous bit of news that had spread like a pox all over Europe. Some of his more progressive friends were making a public display of support for the Jewish artillery officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was convicted by the French government of treason, spying for Germany.

“A civilized nation, and look how they behave, degrading him in public, ripping off his medals,” Frau Wertheim added, watching her husband gulp down several portions of Gruyère and ham from a silver tray. “Poor soul, chained to his bed on Devil's Island, kept sane apparently by reading Tolstoy and Shakespeare.”

Minna quashed the urge to add her opinion, which was that the whole affair was a complete miscarriage of justice. The evidence was obviously forged. After all, he was the only Jew on the general's staff . . . so there you have it.

•   •   •

A
fter the party, Minna retired upstairs to her room and paced the floor like a caged animal. She toyed with the notion of stealing down the back stairs to the now empty parlor to pinch a glass of wine, but the place was so damn cold (the fire had long gone out) that she decided against it. Now she had to focus on the problem at hand. How was she to answer Martha? She must stop procrastinating. She hoped the sisters would sleep through until morning. She had found they were like fitful infants, rarely sleeping through the night, bothering her for a hot water bottle, a cup of tea, an extra blanket or pillow that had to be fetched from the attic, or, worse, instructions to go outside and stop the neighbor's “infernal” dog from barking. The thought of another knock on her door at two a.m. was simply unbearable.

She lit the candle on her small writing desk, pulled out a piece of paper from her valise, and began writing tentatively, scratching out the first of many drafts. She jumped from subject to subject—from accounts of how lonely she was, how confused she felt, to confessions of how much she missed the children, their idiosyncrasies, their squabbling, their increasing hold over her.

“You must dissuade the nanny from putting Sophie back on laudanum. . . . Perhaps you can look in on her a few times during the night. . . . Has Oliver completed his test for the gymnasium yet? . . . How are the boys feeling? . . . Please check Martin's room and make sure it's not too cold.”

She struggled on into the night, looking at all the crumpled, discarded notes on the floor around her chair. Crossed-out lines, insincere passages, subjects of no interest. Hour after hour passed. The candle dripped down to nothing as she wrapped her shawl around her and then put her coat on over everything, searching for just the right thing to say. Eventually, she gave up and wrote her sister a short, breezy note . . . ordinary, yet shadowed by deception.

She wrote that she was obligated to her new post and could not, in good conscience (how ironic), abandon her elderly employers. As to Martha's personal appeals, she acknowledged, as expected, that, indeed, she missed the children terribly and looked forward to the holidays when the family could all be together. To Sophie, she enclosed a note and promised to send her Reverend Charles Kingsley's
Water-Babies
, a book she thought all the children would enjoy.

Regarding her position, she gave Martha little snippets of this and that. There was no mention of the real circumstances, which had become oppressive.

Minna did add that while she was flattered by Eduard's interest, she didn't think there was a future between them because she just didn't feel “that way” about the man.

She wrestled with the question of whether to send regards back to Sigmund. But, first of all, it was so hypocritical it was almost criminal. And, second of all, he hadn't written to her, not one postcard, and why was that? He was perfectly capable of writing, that she knew. He was, in fact, a compulsive letter writer with all sorts of rules, such as one must answer correspondence within twenty-four hours. The problem was that her motives and desires were so complicated and confused at this point, even she didn't know what she wanted. Of one thing she was still certain—she must distance herself from this entanglement. She decided not to mention Sigmund at all.

In the end, Minna looked at her letter and wondered how she had gotten to this point. She was gripped by that primal human sentiment of the what-ifs. What if she could go back in time? Could she have tried a little harder to resist temptation? Perhaps. But it was of no consequence anymore. For she knew that she was now incapable of stopping herself from wanting him.

Vienna, March 10, 1896

Dear Minna,

I was so happy to finally hear from you, dear sister, but for the life of me, I still don't understand why you are there, and you make no mention of when or if you're coming home. I fear that somehow I might be at fault, or that there is some other reason you can't confide in me. I try to comfort myself with the notion that you are, as always, my independent-thinking sister and that your venturing off has nothing to do with us. Am I correct in this assumption? Or could you possibly still be angry with me for contradicting you in front of the children? In retrospect, I shouldn't have interfered in such a trivial matter.

In any event, I won't bother you further about this. You know what's best—except, perhaps, when it comes to the matters of the heart, which brings me back to Eduard. He'll not be around for long. I was at the Sterns' the other night and their daughter (conspicuous creature) was practically flinging herself at him. She sat right next to him on the sofa, laughing too loud at his jokes, leaning in so close she was almost on top of him, and then staring at him with a silly, vapid smile. Finally, he rose to get a drink and I followed him to the bar, where I brought up your name and deliberately monopolized his attention until dinner was called. If I could give you an added incentive to come home, he seemed eager to hear about you. If fate cannot intervene, then I must.

At this point in your life, Minna, perhaps you're too old for romance or flirtation, or whatever expectations you have floating in your mind. Try to be practical for once and think about your future. You mustn't wait until the bloom is off the rose. Time is not on your side.

I hope you can read this spindly handwriting, as my arm paralysis, although better, makes for unruly correspondence. The children are keeping me quite busy. Little Anna is doing wonderfully, guzzling Gartner's whole milk, the picture of health. Mathilde, however, is struggling with a light case of scarlet fever. We've isolated her in her room, and so far none of the others have caught it, thank God.

I'm exhausted, as we just returned from dinner at my mother-in-law's. As usual, Sigmund was late and, as usual, Amalia was completely frantic until he arrived. She knows he's always late, and yet she spends every minute until his arrival barely acknowledging the children, grim-jawed, darting back and forth from the door to the landing to the front steps. And Sigmund's father just sits there in his big chair, silent. Honestly, I don't know how he stands it. And when her “Golden Sigi” finally did arrive, Amalia told him that he looked pale and thinner than usual.

“Are his meals adequate?” she asked, turning to me and implying that it was somehow my fault. Then she made a rude remark about my weight.

No one married to Sigmund could ever live up to her expectations. God forbid she should notice my arm problems or the fact that several of the children were home ill. I did tell her that Sigmund's practice was growing. At least that made her happy—a rare occurrence. By the way, I read him your last letter and he was pleased that things were going so well.

In any event, my dear, everything here is quite monotonous without you. Do send us more information in your next letter so I can ease my mind about your absence.

Your loving sister,

Martha

Frankfurt, March 15, 1896

Dear Martha,

I just read your letter and must tell you that our petty disagreements over the children had nothing to do with my decision to take this post. I would never leave over such a trifle. I just felt that I had to make a life for myself and not impose on your family any longer.

I am saddened to learn that your arm is continuing to plague you. My employers speak of a new pill called aspirin, made by the Bayer company here in Germany . . . it's supposed to be better than laudanum for the treatment of pain. You might ask Sigmund if he can get some for you.

It sounds like Sunday dinners haven't changed. And what of poor Jakob? Sigmund's father always seemed so put upon, like a rat in a trap, waiting for the next barb. Amalia has to be aware that her indelicate remarks make everyone uncomfortable, but she doesn't seem to care, nor should you. She is a silly old woman, and you know as well as I that even Sigmund can't bear to be near her.

I appreciate your concern regarding Eduard and my future prospects (which you seem to think are dwindling). Despite your admonitions, I can't enter into a relationship or a marriage simply because the timing is right. You urge me to disregard sentiment for the sake of a good match. I still require, as I always have, some feelings of a romantic nature.

Love to the children.

Yours,

Minna

Minna posted the letter and began her duties at ten. What had started out as a routine position a few weeks earlier had become brutalizing and demeaning. The sisters now requested she stand outside their bedroom doors each morning awaiting their call, and her duties had expanded to include bathing the women, a job ordinarily handled by the ladies' maid, who had quit unexpectedly the week before.

Today she entered the dark, airless room where sister Bella lay like a leviathan, breathing heavily. Minna opened the curtains, lit the gas lamps, pulled down the bedcovers, and helped the heaving woman out of bed. Supporting her by the arm, she shuffled together with her to the water closet and stood listening to complaints concerning blocked urination. Afterward, she took hold of the lady's hand, steered her away from the puddles on the floor (which the upstairs maid continually complained about), and bathed her girth in a white enameled cast-iron bathtub that was encased in mahogany, like a large coffin.

Minna had suggested that Bella use the shower ring, which fit nicely over her neck, but Bella insisted on submerging herself in the tub, requiring Minna to haul her out, which put a terrible strain on Minna's back and gave her a most unwelcome and graphic view of the woman's naked body.

After the bath, Minna opened a wooden cabinet, which was supplied with an apothecary of remedies, purifiers, lozenges, oils, extracts, and various mixtures of opium powder, tinctures, sedatives, plasters, and soap. She waited while Bella selected the day's medications: White Pine Cough Balsam with a hint of morphine, brown sarsaparilla syrup for purifying the blood and skin, Dr. Claris' Family Liniment in an amethyst-colored bottle, Old Dr. Jessup's Kidney Pills. Bella also swallowed her favorite draft for headaches and lethargy, which contained an alarming amount of mercury and lead.

Then there were the cosmetics. In her youth, Bella had spent time in France, where beauty salons were beginning to make their appearance and cosmetics were eagerly used and readily available. She believed the ancient Roman adage that “a woman without paint is like food without salt.” As a result, Bella used lip reddeners made from mercuric sulfide, eye shadow from lead, and face whitener from zinc oxide.

But she drew the line at belladonna, the juice of the deadly nightshade, which some of her peers used to rinse their eyes in the hopes of obtaining that bright-eyed, youthful look. There had been a few incidents of temporary blindness. She did, however, sometimes sleep with her face wrapped in thin strips of raw beef, which was supposed to have antiaging properties.

Minna then brushed Bella's long, tangled gray hair and began to dress her.

Today's morning costume was a day dress with bright blue and heliotrope stripes, which required a heavy, boned corset with flexible steel wires in front. In addition, as was common for problematic figures, and in order for the waist to fit, Minna needed to wrap a band of leather around the whole thing, squashing and flattening any protruding rolls of flesh. It took Minna over thirty minutes to tightly lace the corset and wrap the leather band, breaking most of her nails in the process.

After Minna deposited Bella at the breakfast table, she awoke Louisa and started the whole process all over again. By eleven, Minna was desperate to rest, if only for a moment, but that was impossible. Her duties after breakfast included stopping at the pharmacy, greengrocer, butcher, and baker, picking up chocolates, flowers, and the sisters' favorite—
Blutwurst
.

When she returned from all this, she was required to sit in the parlor and act cheerful and interested in whatever feather-headed drivel the sisters chose to discuss. This afternoon, they were talking about purchasing additional pieces of furniture and ornamentation at an auction in the suburbs. Julian suggested two end tables and a chinoiserie lamp with matching urns. Lord knows, thought Minna, where in the cluttered, tasteless reception room they were going to squeeze them in.

“What do you think, Minna?” Bella asked. “Should we add some Bohemian glass? I so adore Bohemian glass. The real thing, of course.”

“Imitations are so vulgar,” Louisa added.

What to say about Bohemian glass? How to tell them, in a nice way, they had enough garbage in this house for ten villas. How to tell them that this house was already vulgar so they needn't worry about imitations? How to tell them that her head ached, and that she would quit this dreadful job in an instant if she could.

They were interrupted by the day maid, who handed Louisa an envelope on a silver tray. A smile broke out on her face as she read the handwritten card.

“It's from Julian. He's invited us to a house party at his villa next month!”

“I imagine the Olbriches will be there. . . .”

“And the Bahrs . . . Goodness gracious, he's
even
included you, Minna.”

“How lovely,” said Bella.

“Yes. How lovely. He's always so polite, even inviting the staff,” said Louisa, pointedly looking at Minna.

Truth be known, Minna would rather stay home than spend a weekend listening to the sisters' high-pitched voices, which reminded her of two hummingbirds flapping their wings at frantic speeds and going nowhere. In fact, when
was
the last time she had had a decent conversation? And then she remembered. The last time was with him, of course.